Nightcap 11/30/14 The end of the festival year- Looking ahead to Romania and back at SAIFF and DOC NYC, a sucky Stephen King musical, bad films and links

A cutaway look at Madison Square Garden

We are now heading towards years end and all of the madness that it entails.

For me and the other guys and girls at Unseen it's a time to step back, relax and chill since the festival year is pretty much done. It also means that we can get back on our bikes and choose where we want to go since outside of the big Hollywood films there is a bit of a slow down(I'm getting hit with requests for coverage for January films now)

The last festival for us starts Thursday when MAKING WAVES: NEW ROMANIAN CINEMA hits Lincoln Center. The festival is full of good films. I really liked 4 of the 5 films I saw which has me warming more toward Romanian Cinema.

Atypically our coverage will be a single post on Friday covering all five films. This is my own damn fault  since I sat down and binged on the series Tuesday when I was home sick in bed and I didn't make much more then general notes. That says a great deal about the films quality because I got lost in them, but its bad because the films really deserve longer reviews.
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I want to take a minute and just say a quick word on DOC NYC and SAIFF.

DOC NYC continues to amaze me. Its  so good that I almost want to skip seeing documentaries during the year simply because I know I'm going to get the best stuff there.

As I've said there are no truly bad documentaries, only ones that were they not mixed in with the high quality of the others they would have shined. There were a couple of of films this year that had a seen them away from the 42+ films we saw I would have loved and not liked.

I had some magical experiences going to the fest seeing SHE'S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE'S ANGRY and SALT OF THE EARTH, going to lunch with Mr C and seeing Steve Farhood, and hanging out with Mondo, Chocko and Hubert.

(BTW Brian I still owe you dinner.)

The SOUTH ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL is now one of my favorites.Every year I walk in not having any idea what any of the films are but I walk out with a couple of new favorites and my eyes opened regarding several others.

The thing I also love is that every year I end up conversing with the filmmakers. This year Sudish Kamath gave me one of the coolest viewing experience when he sent his film X my way. Its a film that shouldn't work but does wonderfully- especially the more I think about it.

I was introduced to the fest by Ted Geoghagen and it's a debt I really can't repay.
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Apropos of nothing- this past Monday Peter and I went to see the Stephen King John Melloncamp musical GHOST BROTHERS OF DARKLAND COUNTY at the Beacon Theater in NYC.

The show is a weird mix of concert, radio show and traditional musical. It tells the story of two sets of brothers- two who are ghosts and who end up tragically. The other pair are the nephews of the ghosts and they appear to be on the same road to ruin.


The music is great. The performances very good.

The script is the worst thing that Stephen King has ever put forward. Its laughably awful (calling MST3K). Dramatically its inert with nothing much happening (certainly not enough to support two and a half hours of stage time) and there are no characters. I have no idea who any one was. There is something there but it needs to be completely rewritten by someone other than King

Any life in the script is staked through the heart by the staging which doesn’t know what it was. It looks like its chaos on stage as people sort of dance, sort of interact as if it was a play and mostly belt out songs. They should have settled on a style and gone with it. I would have gone for a radio show affair since that would have removed the need to do anything other than stand and talk or sing. It would have also would make the descriptive dialog have a reason to exist.

As a concert interrupted by shitty dialog it wasn’t bad. As a musical entertainment it sucked canal water. ( I wanted to use spew , a word the play is fond of, but the play never quite got me to the point of wanting to puke)
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This week look for a whole bunch of new releases to get reviewed as well as super sized entry on MAKING WAVES on Friday.

After this week we’re doing what has become an annual event- a month of Criterion collection titles.

I should also mention that I’m at work on the year end wrap ups. The festival wrap up is more or less done, now to dive in and deal with the good the bad and the film finds.

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One of the worst films of the year A SPELL TO WARD OFF DARKNESS is getting a release Friday. Its a horrible film that makes no sense unless you read the copious press notes and if then it will leave you feeling like "you must be kidding". I'm considering reposting my review from New  Directors New Films but I don't know if I want to waste the space. (It can be found here)

Another truly awful film THE STORY OF MY DEATH, a film I'd rather skip to have a root canal has started screening at the Anthology FIlm Archives in New York. I can't say anything good about it other than avoid it.

My take on the film can be found here.
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And now Randi's Links

The animated adventures of Firefly- Production diary
Last Lunch with Mike Nichols
Disney Animation Posters
Mutts Behind the Curtain:The Gifts of nothing
David Hare on Mike Nichols
film critic writes on Lego
On Robert Osborne
Alex Gibney is making a film on Scientology
Foriegn Fields
Broadway Flops
William Burroughs-A Thanksgiving Prayer
Shirokite
reasons to be thankful-classic cartoons
70 Bootleg movie posters


(and why a cutaway of MSG? Why not?)

SAIFF 2014: The bold experiment that is X (2014)

The Opening Night film for this years South Asian Film Festival was X.  The film is unique since eleven directors all wrote and shot portions of the same film in their own style. While that may sound like a trick, it actually works and makes for a very special viewing experience.

K is a film director at a film festival festival party. He encounters a young woman who begins to orbit him who reminds him of other women in his life. As he deals with this latest woman he has to cope with all of the others that have gone before as he drifts back and forth through his life.

When the films for this years SAIFF were announced I was instantly intrigued by X. I had seen films where a couple of directors worked from the same script  but outside of an anthology film I had not ever seen one where so many directors worked on one film, nor do I think had I ever run across a film where all of the directors not only directed their segments of a single story but also wrote them. I couldn't imagine what magic would be needed to make sure that it all tied together on every level.

Sadly I ended up unable to attend the SAIFF screening, however the opportunity presented itself when Sudhish Kamath, the driving force behind the project asked me if I wanted to see the film and like Pavlov's dog I leapt at the chance. (I say this by way so saying a big thank you to Mr Kamath)

Having now seen X I can honestly say that while it is uneven,owing to the many writer/directors, it is also a really good film. It may take a little bit to click,but once it does the film turns into a wonderful viewing experience.

While it would be easy to pull the film apart and talk about the various chapters on their own (for example the 8 to 8 room share is as glorious a romance as you'll ever see) I would rather talk about the film as a whole, partly because the film is a single story, but also because it's a single story with eleven directors that actually works and results in a film of great power.

I think it's best to describe what seeing the film was like for me,

The film opens at the film festival. We watch as K interacts with several people including the woman who will follow him through the rest of the film. The sequence looks great and it has some great dialog (actually the whole film has quotable dialog).I was hooked and I hunkered down for what I thought was going to be one sort of film.

What happened instead was that the first flashback segment started and I was wobbled a bit.since it played very differently than the "now" portion of the film. I wondered what was I seeing and what was the film getting at. I wasn't sure.

The film then shifted back to "now"  and then shifted back to a memory. I was enjoying the pieces but it didn't completely come together- and then we hit the third flashback segment and suddenly I began to click with the film. I began to accept the tonal shifts, the time jumps and I began to understand what we are looking at.I began to understand and see how we were examining the mind of one man. I wasn't getting it early on because I simply didn't have enough pieces to see the whole picture.Its a picture that slowly and surely became more and more clear as the film went on. (When you see the film be patient and stay with it)

How the hell did they pull this off?

In theory this film shouldn't work. 11 writers and directors all using their own vision to create one story? It really shouldn't work. I mean I've seen versions of this in novel or graphic novel form and it usually falls apart somewhere in as the styles clash, but it doesn't happen here. Okay yes the film isn't perfect, some of the segments are better than others, some segments clash with the ones on either side but at the same time the film as a whole works. The portrait of K that we get is rich and complex, perhaps much more complex than if one director had done it all. Say what you will there is something about the various tones and styles that give color and shading to K and his struggles that wouldn't be there had just one person directed this film. I think a single director would have been too worried about making a seamless whole so the unevenness of life would have been lost.

Wow.

By the time I reached the conclusion of the film I not only was amazed at the technical aspects of the film, but I was moved by the story and K's journey back and forth through his timeline.

You'll have to forgive me but the film geek in me wants to say "This is so cool!" This a grand technical achievement that is also a moving film.

As I said I really like this film a great deal.

Should you see it? If you want to see a very good drama about one man trying to come to terms with his life you absolutely should. You should also see it so that you can see that sometime "too many" cooks" won't spoil the broth, sometimes they'll get it dead nuts right.

One of the really cool viewing experiences of 2014.

SAIFF 2014: Dukhtar (2014)

Pakistan's entry for the Oscars is a treat for anyone getting it to see it at The South Asian International Film Festival this evening. I've seen a good number of the Oscar hopefuls and this is only the second one that deserves to be considered for the award. Its one of the rarest of the rare a touching drama that is also a kick ass thriller. This may very well be the best film at SAIFF and it may very well end up on my best of 2014 list as well.

The film is set in motion when a father makes a deal to seal peace with another tribe by giving the hand of his daughter in marriage to another tribal leader. This doesn't sit well with the girl's mother who was given in marriage when she was fifteen, especially since the groom is many decades older. Grabbing her daughter on her wedding day she bolts out of the village in a desperate run for her family o the other side of the country.  Things take a possible hopeful turn when they fall in with a truck driver named Sohail which means God Protects.

Working on several levels the mixing of drama and action films allows the film to do several things that shouldn't work. First it heightens the the tension and the sense of drama in ways that shouldn't work. The sense of good and bad and right and wrong are made very black and white even though we can see the grays. We know who's good and bad but we also see the levels of emotion and thoughts with in them.

The mixing also allows corners to be cut. We can jump to conclusions and not mind because what under normal circumstances could have been a talky film about child marriage and the rights of women are now in a chase frame work where we don't need long explanations and short hand notes are completely fine with the audience. The who's and the whats can be reduced to bullet points because there is no time for long winded discussion.

Helping everything is gorgeous visual style and driving score that makes everything move like the wind and fear for our heroines.

This is a great great film...

....and its so good looking you'll want to see this on the BIG screen when it plays tonight.

An absolute must see.

For tickets and more information go to the films festival web page

SAIFF 2014 Killa(aka The Fort) (2014)

Sometimes you walk down a path a thousand times and see nothing new. Some times you walk down the path the one more time and find the entire world is suddenly something unexpected. That unexpected trip is what The South Asian International Film Festival has given us with KILLA, which is playing this afternoon.

The plot is nothing new, a young boy and his mom move to a new town because her job has sent them there. They are still reeling from the death of the father/husband a year before. How will they deal with their new life in a small town?

Wonderfully.

Avinash Arun, a cinematographer making his directorial debut has given us a beautiful looking film full of wonderfully real people and situations. Its a film that follows a well worn cinematic path but doesn't walk in it, instead it stays off the path just far enough so as to keep things interesting.

You'll have to forgive me but I don't know how much to tell you. I'm in this weird place where I want to tell you everything, but with a film like this, which looks familiar but isn't, the joy in seeing the film is discovering how different something familiar can be.

I feel bad refusing to tell you more but this is one of those times when I'd rather be a pointer instead of a spoiler.  Go see KILLA. Go see something great and discover its charms for yourself.

The film plays at SAIFF at 2:30 this afternoon and is worth hustling down to the SVA theaters to see it. For tickets and information go here.

SAIFF 2014: Jigarthanda (Cold Heart)(2014)

Call Jigarthanda SAIFF 2014's cult film. A genre bending "gangster musical". Its a weird mix of nasty violence, music and comedy.

This is the story of Karthik (who shares the same first name as director Karthik Subbaraj) is a down on his luck film maker. Spinning a plot to a producer, he's told it's old hat. If he can come up with a really good gangster film he'll finance the film.  Desperate to make a film he begins to look at old newspaper clippings, only to find the best ones have already been made into films. Realizing the only way to get material for a film would be to follow an up and coming gangster Karthik decides to follow Assault Sethu, one of the baddest of the bad. That works fine for a while until an unfortunate turn of events puts his life in danger.

Weird mix of comedy, drama, gangsters, violence and music is in the words of one other reviewer a "whiplash kind of mixture". Constantly shifting styles and genres this is a film that you're either going to go with or walk out of. I don't mean that in any bad way other than if you don't want your film to bounce from comedy to drama to violent encounter to black comedy, stay away. On the other hand if you don't mind your genres mixed by all means dive in.

For me the mixing of genres (and an occasionally annoying musical score) had me fighting to stay with the film for most of the first third of the film. The bouncing between nasty violence and comedy or the mixing of the violence with the humor made it tough for me to know what was a supposed to feel? When a man is burned a live and  going through his death throes we should feel horrified but the music makes it feel like a circus. Another time the violent stabbing of a man to death during a silly argument about who's going to kill him left me feeling weird. Its funny but also kind of like WTF.

I completely applaud that writer director Karthik Subbaraj wants to mess with our heads and emotions but I don't think it's always the way he wants. I think the shifting of tones works against the film having the complete gut punch it seems to be going for.

Ultimately I like the film a great deal, partly because the pieces are so good and partly because I love any film that is ballsy enough that it forces you to engage it wholeheartedly.

The film plays tonight at 1030 and if you don't mind staying up late I recommend you take in the screening. Also recommended who want to see a variation on themes explored in Sono's Why Don't You Play in Hell

(A word of warning.The SAIFF version of the film has the run time as 150 minutes. This is a festival version of the film that trims a song and some scenes which reduces the run time down from its listed time at IMDB and most other places as 171 minutes.)

SAIFF 2014: Titli (aka Butterfly)(2014)

If you want to take a walk on the dark side, at The South Asian International Film Festival might I suggest TITLI?

Titli is the name of our hero. One of three brothers in a family of carjackers he wants out of the life. He's hoping to get enough money to buy into a new parking garage that's going up. The trouble is he doesn't want to let the family to know until it's a done deal.  His brother don't want him to leave, so they marry him off to Neelu, a beautiful girl with her own agenda. The pair make a bargain with each other to get what they want but the lies and crimes have a price and it has to be paid.

The film sucked me in from almost the start, I was very curious to see what was going to happen especially since the film has a dark cloud hanging over it from the first moments. The promised deal to buy the garage is complicated by a sudden rise in price. From there we see the violent and dog eat dog world Titli lives in, and we know why he wants out. Titli's family draws the line at murder  that doesn't mean there isn't room for other forms of violence with physical or psychic. Everyone is abusing everyone

This search for a better life is a dark tale tinged with hope. There may be a better life, but what will you do to get it, and if you do get it will it have been worth selling your soul to get it? And what if what you want isn't really what you thought?

You'll forgive the lack of detail and words but the film is still banging around in my head and heart. While I can tell you what it is and that I liked it, my ability to pull it apart and be critical isn't really there. I need time to sit and reflect on the film, which as I write this about two weeks before the screening is not something I'm really able to do since I'm about to dive into another film. I know once I see the next film my thoughts for this one will get jumbled.  Such is the peril of being a film writer.

Do yourself a favor and if you see TITLI,which you should do, don't see something after it. See the film on it's own and let it work you over for a while before you see something else. This is a film that deserves careful consideration.

For more information and tickets go to the film's festival page.

SAIFF 2014: Ek Hazarachi Note (aka 1000 Rupee Note) (2014)

An older woman whose son committed suicide due to mounting debt is given a some 1000 rupee notes by a politician. The note then brings a its own troubles to the woman and a neighbor who is a kind of adopted son.

While this is the first of my reviews from this years South Asian Film Festival that is posting, this was the last film I saw when doing my reviews. I mention this at the start because the quiet nature of the film threw me off after four other films of higher intensity. Ithink the low key nature of the film worked against my totally loving the film- I was expecting something else and when I started it. I think had I seen this first or second  (this is the second feature screening at SAIFF) I think it would have knocked me off my feet.

Echoing, in away, Steinbeck's The Pearl, Ek Hazarachi Note the trouble we have with getting the thing that will change our fortune.Wealth brings its own troubles. When we have something that other people think they should have these other people often will try to work out why that is, and then work out how to gt it for themselves. Its seems inconceivable that this woman would have such a large note...and as for the explanation-out right corruption and vote buying- which is of course an open secret-but one no one should talk about.

I hate to call the film charming, but in its way it is. This is ultimately good time with good people despite the fact that the people in the film are in ultimately dire circumstances. Life isn't great to begin with but there is humor. And even when things turn darker there is a sense that life isn't that dark.

I really like this film a great deal. I think I would have liked this more had it been seen earlier in my SAIFF viewing where it had to compete with some other great films.

Recommended when the film plays tonight.

For more information and tickets to tonights screening go to the film's festival page.

South Asian International Film Festival starts Tuesday

The South Asian International Film Festival, the last of my favorite film festivals of the year, starts Monday with the private dinner for the jurors. For the rest of us it starts on Tuesday with the premiere of X

I never really had interest in the festival other than the odd film until writer, director and all around good guy Ted Geoghagen told me I should be covering the festival and sent me some films. I was hooked. Every year since then I’ve made an effort to cover the festival always finding some truly special gems. The films, for good or bad, always were a revelation showing me things that I never considered or framed things I knew in a new way. If films festivals are supposed to broaden our cinematic horizons then this festival does it in spades.

This year I’ve got coverage of five films coming- and I can heartily recommend every one of them. I was hoping to do at least all eight features (I wanted to see the opening night film X) and some of the shorts but I had committed to some other things that are keeping me from wading into the trenches. Then again miracles sometimes happen.

Don’t let my inability to get down and dirty stop you from going, pick a film or three and go. Information on the films and tickets can be had at the SAIFF website.

Also look for reviews on the mornings og the 19th, 21st and 22nd